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Submitted on 1 Jan 1977
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Belt charging system
M. Letournel, J.-C. Oberlin
To cite this version:
BELT
CHARGING SYSTEM
M. LETOURNEL and J.-C. OBERLIN
Centre de Recherches
Nucléaires,
Université LouisPasteur,
67037Strasbourg
Cedex,
FranceRésumé. 2014 Les courroies des accélérateurs M.P. ont rencontré de sérieuses difficultés
principale-ment au sujet de la durée de vie. Différents paramètres du système de charge par courroie sont analysés et certains d’entre eux sont soulignés comme concourant à la détérioration de la courroie ou à la
modu-lation de tension. Dans cet ordre d’idées, certaines
expériences
sont actuellement en cours et serontpoursuivies afin de
pallier
à ces limitations de courroie et de déterminer également lespossibilités.
Abstract. 2014 InM.P. accelerators belts have encountered some difficulties mainly about the belt
life time. In the belt charging system, parameters are investigated and some of them are
pointed
out as being
partly
responsible either for belt deterioration orfor
belt ripple.Experiments
are and will be carried out to surround the actual belt limitations.In many
places
aftercarrying
a lot of nuclearphysic
experiments,
belts seem to have encounteredbig
diffi-culties,
specially
in M.P. machines. Beltcharging
system
seems verysimple.
Corona needles or nowscreens,
deposit charges
at the base of the machine and carry them up to the terminal electrode wherethey
arepicked
up by a screen. In order to double thepossibility
ofcharging,
negative
charges
can bedrawn from the terminal electrode down to the base. All this has worked well for many years. Besides of
some well known
advantages
assimplicity,
a lot ofcurrent,
transported
belt show anothercharacteristic,
thevoltage ripple,
wellanalyzed by
manypeople
[1,
2].
Thisripple
is the modulation in terminalvoltage
due to the balance between theincoming charge
and theoutgoing charge
tempered
through
the RC of the terminal electrode. A corona stabilizer have to cope with the freerunning ripple
in order tobring
it around 1 or 2 kV[3].
Everyone
knows the main characteristics of thebelt,
but is also aware of some disasters with M.P.belt
(Fig.
1).
Belt life time iscommonly
more than 10 000 hours in many Van de Graaffmachines,
butspecially
in the M.P. machine it has turned outthat belt life time is the
major
criticalpoint,
belt durationbeing generally everywhere
of the order of afew thousand hours or even 1 or 2 000 hours. Black
and tan belts have shown the same characteristic
deterioration process. A ruined belt shows
everywhere
similar failures:long
holesalong long stripes
eithercompletely punctured through
the belt orpartially
punctured
to the belt carcass and on bothsides,
individual
pinholes through
thebelt,
among orbesides
large
mat belt surface areas. Aspecial
paper isdevoted to this kind of deterioration and structure
[4].
The purpose of this paper is to try to
investigate
someFIG. 1. - Belt breakdown.
fondamental processes in belt
-charging
system, someproblems,
or some new aspects.1. Belt - Surface and bulk contact electrification
-Ripple.
- The belt is made ofa cotton carcass
bet-ween two
layers
of rubber. This rubber has to carrycharges
and in staticelectricity
there are threeelec-trification processes :
1 - Contact electrification
(including
tribo and field inducedelectrification) ;
2 - Corona
charging;
3 - Polarization in electric fields.
There is a
strong
evidence that contactelectrifica-tion
plays
a role in the contact between belt and other material aspulley
andguides.
Infact,
it isprobably
animportant
component of the beltvoltage
ripple.
The rubbercoating
of the belt is a poly-mer which is able to bestrongly charged through
1384
contact to a metal. On
figure
2 we see theexperiment
of Volta[5]
showing
transfer ofcharge
after contactbetween one
plate
of Zi and one of Cu. The contactcharging
metal insulator andspecially
metalpolymer
ishighly
effective and has been studiedrecently
by
manypeople.
FIG. 2. - Volta’s
experiment.
On
figure
3 Robins[6]
showscharges acquired
by polymers
afterrepeated
contact with a chromiumsphere.
We can see a kind of saturation with thecharge
densitiesaccording
to the number of contacts.FIG. 3. -
Examples of charges acquired after repeated contact.
Contact
charging
isaccomplished mainly by
thetrans-fer of electrons and ions.
Depending
on the nature of the material in contact, the surface condition and.external factors such as an electric field
traversing
theinterface
acharge
transfer will occur. If the materialsbecome
separated
some, none or all of thecharge
may remain on therespective
surfaces.This
charge
transfer has beenexplained by
Davies[7]
and Bauser[8]
and found to beproportion-nal to the difference in the electron work functions of the
contacting
materials(Fig. 4).
And the solid stateFIG. 4. -
Example of charge density against work function.
Physics approach
hasgiven
anexplanation
similarto that for
inorganic
semiconductors. In static elec-trification of solid insulatorsby
metal contacts, electrons are transferred from a metal to an insulator or reversedepending
on the distribution of the energylevels involved.
Figure
5 shows theenergy
band[9]
FIG. 5. - Contact between metal and polymer a) before contact
b) after contact.
schema for a metal and an insulator before and
during
contact. Thecharge [10]
densitiesproduced by
çontactdepend
on the nature and also on the pressureof the
contacting
materials. Cleves has shown thestrong
dependance [10]
of thecharge density
with thehumidity.
And
it seems very useful to think about afan or a
drying
device inside the tank to accelerate theremoval of
moisture,
just
afterclosing
the tank. In anand the
charge
transfer is verysignificant. Charge
densities of 10-9C/cm2
or more can begenerated
when a metal is
brought
into contact with an insulatorsample.
The electron transfer is instantaneous but itdepends
how the contact area is defined and inprac-tice build up of
charge
is made after several contactsdepending
on how the contact is made and alsodepending
on the nature and the cleanliness of thesurface,
and the contact pressure[10].
Mordhage
has shown thedependance
of thecharge density
in contactwith an
applied
electric field[11]. Polymers
absorb water which maymodify
the electronic structure of thepolymer
and determine a strongdependance
onthe
charge
transfer. Anexperiment
that we havecar-ried out with Coste and
Pechery
on a Van de Graaff beltsample
in 30%
relativehumidity
has shownnegative charge
transfer of the order of 2nC/cm2
ateach contact, 10 contacts
giving
15 x 10-9C/cm2.
These
experiences
are very wellreproducible
butvalues are different from a
sample
to another or evenfrom one
place
to another on the same beltsample .
Humidity plays
amajor
role.It is
long
known thatrubbing insulating
mate-rial
ône
on the other or onmetal,
make them toget
charge
of a certain.sign.
Triboelectric lists or seriesof different materials are in many books
[8],
and beltdo not avoid such a
phenomena,
which is verycompli-cated.
Slipping
belts,
high
or lowripple depending
on belttension,
might imply
a componentcoming
from this
negative charge
transfer onto the belt. From the mechanicalpoint
of view of a pure contact andseparation avoiding
anysliding,
thecharge density
isproportional
to the difference in work function ofthe
contacting
partners. As soon asgliding
or friction occurs, thephenomenon
is farmore
complex
and lessreproducible.
And what iscontact and what is friction? Studies of the electrosta-tic
charges developed by
friction under well controlled conditionsspecially
for relativehumidity
have been doneby
Coste andPechery (1)
with anaparatus
wherethere is a belt
rotating
on rollers andgliding
is assuredby
one of the rollers which can tum as the samespeed
orspeed
up or down orstopped.
A certain pressurecan be
applied.
The remarkable results of thousands ofexperiments
of different materials is that it ispossible
to divide the results in three different types(Fig.
6).
1 -
Charge density
isgrowing
up to a constantlevel. II -
Charge density
goesthrough
amaximum,
then
decreases,
changes polarity
to obtain a newequilibrium
state.III -
Charge density goes through
amaximum,
decreases to a constant level without
polarity change.
(1) COSTE J. and PECHERY P. Private communication.
Experiences
are nowbeing
carried out with abelt and it seems that belt is of the type I. It seems that
when we
stop
thefriçtion,
the normalpolarity
andcharge
transfer occur in the samé way as before but itFIG. 6. - Charging friction effect versus time.
is not
always
the case and results aredependant
of thesurface itself and many
factor.
For a
belt,
forexample
a M.P.belt,
belt is drivenby
a drive motor whose drum is adesignes,
with 17 grooves separated of 1 inch in order to let the gas escape. Thispulley
isslightly
crowned from the twolast grooves on each
side,
down to the end. On the alternatorpulley crowning
is also made on 2 inches oneach side. There the
slippage
effect is obvious and is in the order of somecm/s.,
on the beltwings.
Themechanical load of the belt is
high
andobviously
notthe same
along
the belt width because of the grooves,and also in
time,
according
to all the mechanical vibration modes of arunning
belt. All these factors inaddition to the electric up
charge
field arepart
of theparasitic
charge
transfer,
andprobably
of theripple.
Someloading
on thenormally
nongrooved
alter-nator determines also the
slippage
of the alternatorcompared
to the belt. Thisphenomenon
leads to inducea certain amount of
negative charges deposited
ontothe terminal internal belt face. Due to the modulated load
slippage,
it determines an erraticvoltage
ripple
sometimes
higher
in SF6 than 30 kV and hard tostabilize. The
functionning
of the solutionbrought
through
the French connection(12]
(Fig. 7)
was notcléar
in thebeginning,
but can be nowexplained
by
induction of an
equal
amount ofcharge
ofopposite
polarity
inducedthrough
the secondpost
alternatorscreen onto the extemal belt side to
compensate
the internaiparasitic
charges.
2. Corona
charging process.
- About the coronacharging
it is known that from asharp
needle or avery thin
wire,
the electric field around thosesharp
points may
increasebeyond
the breakdownstrength
’and coronadischarges
appear. The gas around the1386
FIG. 7. - French connection device.
positive
ornegative
goalong
the electric lines of forceand
depending
on the field in the gap and the ratio ofpoint
radius to gap length, the streamers start with very high speed and slow down tovelocity
of some100
m/s
or more. Twothings
must bepointed
out,first for the
layer
ofcharges
on theinsulator,
theextreme
sensitivity
to the excesspotential
on thecathode,
second thestrong
dependance
of the current on thegeometrical
characteristics of the wire or needle.In other
words,
it would be notsurprising
for a row ofneedles or a screen to have the current
coming
notfrom each
point
butmainly
from some of them.3. Double
transportation possibility.
- Ifwe
intro-duce an insulator into an electric field determined
by
a constantvoltage
U. After a certaintime,
due todeposit
of ions of samesign,
the final state of this insulator is as shown on thefigure
8a where the fieldFIG. 8. -
a) Insulator between two plates. b) Natural double transportation.
between the insulator surfaces and the electrode is first
reduced,
then reduced to zero. In1953,
Gart-ner[13]
showed that the electrostatic machines could run under certain conditionsalong
the double naturalcharge
transportation. Figure
8b shows thisprinciple.
For a certainfield,
andmainly
if weget
ionization under the inductor
plate,
there isdeposit
ofnegative charge density
-6,charge
bound after acertain time in the belt and never removed. The
char-ging
system works then that way only in a case ofupcharge.
Acharge density
2 a is put on the beltby
corona
discharge
forexample
outside the belt andremoved
by
a screen or needle in the terminalelec-trode. The
charge
-6 is built up after some turns onthe internal belt side. This way of
charging
allows to carry a doubledensity. Only
theinsulator,
beltmate-rial encounters an extra strain. This double natural
charge transportation
is apossibility
at leastpartially
in the Van de Graaff machines.Experiences
of inter-nal beltcharging
haveproved
thatcharges
staywithout
being substantially
removedby
the terminalpulley,
and all the conditions are there to allowpartly
that kind ofcharging.
This process can lead to a non uniformpattern
ofcharges
bound on theinternal belt side due
mainly
to theparasitic charges
and the non uniform drive motorgeometry.
It can, influence strongly
the non uniformdeposit
ofcharges
by
corona process. To avoid thispossibility,
try of beltcharge
removal can be donesimultaneously
on bothsides after the terminal
pulley (Fig.
9).
FIG. 9. - Double discharge screen.
4.
Charge
removal. - Removal ofcharges
from acharge
insulator can be donethrough
differentpro-cesses but
mainly through
the fieldproduced by
thecharged
belt itself near the top ofgrounded points
orwires which ionized the gas.
Negative
ions are thenprojected
on to thecharged
belt in such a way us toneutralize the excess field at each instant. In the case
of the
(Fig.
10),
these ions aredeposited
on a wellFIG. 10. -
Discharge mecanism of a foil due to an approaching
earthed point: a) before the projection of ions,
b) during the projection of ions,
defined
surface,
the dimensions of whichdepend
onthe
charge
density
and on theproximity
of any conductors[14].
Whatever the
speed
is,
agrounded
screen or serie of needles willusually
discharge
the belt to an averagecharge density
of about 100pC/cm2
that means for the beltcharge
current, in the order of 1J.lA
or less.If there is
enough
space free ofconductors,
this eliminator worksproperly
but there are other meansto reduce this value if necessary. As the initial
speed
of these ions is greater than105
cm/s
thedischarge
follows the field variations almostinstantaneously.
And in case of a H.V.E.C. belt arrangement and inorder to prevent influence from one side on the
other,
two screens withlongwires
one on eachside,
facing
each other on one cm distance can be addedafter the terminal
pulley,
withgood
result to take careof both sides
(Fig.
9).
To
measure theefficiency
of acharge
eliminator Lôvstrand[15]
made a machinewhich indicated the better residual
charge density
results with25 03BC
wires and thedependance
with the bandvelocity,
thecharge density
and the nature of the eliminators.Under the usual Van de Graaff machine
conditions,
as thecharged
beltvoltage
can not behigher
than this determinedby
the beltcapacity
itself,
withcharge
density higher
than 4nC/cm2,
twoneutralizing
steps can be considered in order toprevent
a spontaneousdischarge,
before the proper removal. The first stepmust be in a metallic environment which
keeps
the beltcharge
capacity high
enough.
It means that thefirst screen must be at a distance not greater than
some 2 to 4 cm from the
ground,
or in another handbelt must be
protected by
agrounded plate
not too far from the first screen.5.
Physical
processes involved with belts. - A belt,
has
to be treated as an insulator of aresistivity
of theorder of 1012 Qcm. Then with no free electrons on
the rubber
surface,
the cotton carcass ofresistivity
of the order of
109
Qcmbeing
there from the electricpoint
of view to allow agood
distribution of thepotential. Consequently charging
process, removal process andcharge
transportation
must beexplained
with
thisparticular
view of an insulator.First,
speak-ing
about the so calledrearranging
ofcharges
on thebelt to
explain ripple
or loss ofcharges
in normalrunning
conditions,
it isimpossible.
AsZichy point
out
[16], charges
arefirmly
bound inside the beltpolymer
structure and it isimpossible
for them tomove except
through
gas ionization determined in afixed field
configuration
by
the beltholding capability.
Second,
theexchange
of beltcharges
or theneutralizing
of these
charges proceeds,
under normal conditionsonly through
theincoming
of ions ofopposite
polarity
created in the gas. Electric lines of force(Fig.
11)
coming
from the top surface of acharged
belt arestrongly
influencedby
theground
and directed towards thenearby
conductors. The fieldconfigura-FIG. 11. - Electric lines of forces configuration.
A. Charged belt on pulley with a screen.
B. Çharged belt alone with a screen.
C. Charged belt, screen and nearby conductor.
D. Charged belt on plate, screen.
E. Internal charged belt.
tion in the
pressurized
gasdepends
on thegeometrical
position
of thenearby
conductors and other neutralor
charged objects (C).
Then,
to actproperly, charge
removal determined
by
the beltcharge
field itself must beaccomplished
farenough
from conductors(B),
otherwise the field created on the screen is to low toallow a
complete
neutralization(D).
On the contrarythis
phenomenon
alsoexplains why
it isimpossible
toremove any
charge
at all even with agrounded
screenfrom the external side of a
charged
beltright
onto ametallic
pulley (A).
By
lackof field,
we must create anadditional electric field in order to neutralize the
charge
oreventually
tocharge
with the otherpolarity,
by
incoming
ions ofopposite polarity
which is thecase of down
charging.
The field must be strongenough
only
wherecharging
orcharge
removal has to occur. Thisexplains
why
under normalconditions,
charges
can stayduring
an infinite time withoutbeing
removed and are the basis of the terminal
voltage
repetitive
ripple
and of thepossible
double naturaltransportation. Particularly charges
bound in the belt inside surface are not removedby
contact on metallicpulleys (E).
But,
in anotherhand,
we can think alsoabout the use of this
particularity
toimprint
durable1388
6.
Charge transportation.
- Another fundamentalproblem
is thecharge transportation through
the totalstructure. It is
governed essentially
by
the concept ofcharge
beltcapacity,
the deducedpotential,
and gasrigidity.
The main aspect of the
charge transportation
is studied elsewhere[4],
andgives
anexplanation
for the M.P. belt deterioration. About the otherpossible
belt failures(2),
voltages tracks,
surface or volume break-downs aremainly
due to amalfunctioning
orimpro-per oimpro-peration somewhere. Over
voltage
or overchar-ging
of thebelt,
poor charge spray orcollection,
inducting inhomogeneity,
wet gas or lack ofcondi-tionning
are theprobable
causes of failures. Theimportance
of belt moisture removal before normaloperation
has to beemphasized.
Ifcharges
move on abelt
surface,
it is because of toohigh
atangential
field and a reduced surfaceresistivity
due forexample
tomoisture.
7. Modifications in structure. - In
May
1976,
cha-sing
the kind of trouble due to M.P. belt deterioration which waspatent
at this timethrough
a currentleakage
on the internal structure section 8 andfollo-wing
the Van de Graaff andTrump
concept
ofcontrolling voltage
on thebelt,
we took all spacersand control rods away. From the drive motor to the terminal
pulley,
the belt was not allowed to touchanything
except
the four screens. So the outsideguides
and bars were
positioned
to follow as best we couldthe
practical running
curve of the belt which issome-thing
as a catenary curve.Spacers
andgradient
rodswere
roughly
at a distance of 1 inch from the up runand
1/2
inch from the down run which was notcharged.
The mechanical
ripple
was in the order of 1 cm for thebelt
wings
but not more than 5 mm for the middle. To control fromoutside,
we added 3lamps (Fig.
12)
inFIG. 12. - Half
open structure without rollers.
. the terminal in vertical
setting
which we watchedthrough
a mirrorsystem.
We ran with this structurewith
exactly
the samevoltage
characteristics up to13 MV and with no difference at all from
previous
behaviour.This half open structure is fine. Since then in order
to stabilize and smooth the
machine,
we have installed insulated rollers(Fig. 13)
in deadsections,
termi-(2) H.V.E.C. Private communication.
FIG. 13. - Half
open structure with some rollers.
nal electrode and
high
energyposition.
Some of themare coated with rubber and
they
all run atfloating
potential (Fig.
14).
We still had the samevoltage
FIG. 14. - Rubber coated roller.
characteristics and the rollers run
perfectly
well.They
will be used in the future to better define and stabilize belt
charges.
Figure
15 andfigure
16 show the alternator and drive motor covered with two kinds ofrubber,
and with holes which evacuate the SF6 gas towards the ends.They
have been triedsuccessfully
in the machineas
regards voltage.
Besides thegood
frictioncoeffi-cient,
the reason to have rubber is that the best nonelectrification transfer contact takes
place
between twomaterial of the same nature. Antistatic rubber can also
be used in order to eliminate
parasitic charges.
But we can notkeep
them likethat,
because of a belttrans-versal abrasive
displacement,
on the antistatic blackrubber.
They correspond
to the finaldesign
and wehave decided to
replace
this rubberby
an identicalsleeve of
metal,
just
thicker.As far as the
stability
isconcerned,
the samephilo-sophy
as for thépelletron
must beconsidered,
tocontrol the total terminal
charge
bilan. We musttry
tocope with the total belt
charge including
theparasitic
charges.
Agood
direction iscertainly
to think asLangsdorf [17]
oftreating
beltcharging
anddis-charging by
induction. He mounted a beltcharging
belt face and
brought
the terminal freerunning
ripple
in the order of 300 or 500WBlythe
[18]
presen-ted a similar induction device withcorona
wires. Hesucceeded to control
charge
density
forcharging
anddischarging
with a very accurated way. His devicedoes not
operated
in normal Van de Graaffrunning
conditions,
butjoined
to ourrollers,
with somechanges
it canbring
agreat
improvement
to control thecharge
dénsity
and therefore the terminalvoltage
ripple.
. References
[1] WEITKAMP W. G. and SCHMIDT F. H., Nucl. Instrum.
Methods 122 (1974) 65.
[2] VERMEER A. and STRASTERS B. A., Nucl. Instrum. Methods. 131 (1975) 213.
[3] THIEBERGER P., LINDGREN R., MCKEOWN M. and
WEGNER H. E., Nucl. Instrum. Methods 122 (1974) 527. [4] LETOURNEL M. and BELT M. P., Revue Phys. Appl. 12 (1977). [5] RUPPEL W., (Dechema-Monographien) Nr. 1370-1409, 1973,
321.
[6] ROBINS, ROSE A. C., INNES and LOWELL J., Inst. Phys. Conf.
Ser 27 (1975) 115.
[7]DAVIES D. K., Inst. Phys. Conf. Ser. 4 (1967).
[8] BAUSER H. (Dechema-Monographien) Nr. 1370-1409, 1973,
11.
[9] KRUPP H. Inst. Phys. Conf. Ser. 4 (1967) 1.
[10] CHALLENDE R. F. Advances in Static Electricity Vienne Auxilia-Brussels 1970.
[10*] CLEVES A. C., Inst. Phys. Conf. Ser. 11 (1971) 226.
[11] NORDHAGE F. and BÄCKSTRÖM G. Inst. Phys. Conf. Ser. 27 (1975) 84.
[12] Tandem accelerator Conference 1974 Rehovot - Israël. [13] GARTNER E., R.G.E. Février et mars 1953 t. 62 71-86,136-154. [14] BERTEIN H. Inst. Phys. Conf. Ser. 4 (1967) 11.
[15] LOVSTRAND K. G. Inst. Phys. Conf. Ser. 27 (1975) 246.
[16] ZICHY E. L. (Dechema-Monographien) Nr. 1370-1409, 1973, 147.
[17] LANGSDORF A. Proc. Int. Conf. on the Techn. Elect. Acc.
Daresbury (1973) 255.